Her bright eyes are boring into him. "Yes, he's the man who zapped me," says Tara Murphy, director of the Solomon Gallery. She's looking at Frank Lavery, an eye surgeon, who in turn is looking very pleased with himself; he looks back at her. "Last November I had big Nana Mouskouri glasses," Tara explains. "Now I have perfect sight." Mr Lavery, step forward and take bow. Now Murphy is off to the Alps for a skiing holiday "glasses-free" she says, delighted. But enough chatting, business calls and Sean Collins, a veterinary surgeon, and his wife, Hanne Collins, sister of the fashion designer Ib Jorgensen, want to buy a painting. A red spot is put on number 26, Foxgloves in Victor Richardson's exhibition. Suzanne Macdougald, owner of the gallery, in a grey Lainey Keogh creation, chats to the artist - "handsome, debonaire, intelligent," as he describes himself, helpfully. Sharon Burke, an accountant, and her friend Jennifer Robertson, speech therapist, come over also to congratulate him on the show. His work is off to Carolina after this.
The Dutch ambassador, Peter Van Vliet, and his painter wife, Suzanne Van Vliet are also checking it out. What does she paint? "Landscapes with Irish graveyards - very often I put people and rubbish in and very often with a little joke to make it intriguing," she says. Intriguing.
Countess Farah Massimi, from Rome (as in Italy), is here. She's still here - having come to Dublin more than 20 years ago, she has thrown three goodbye parties and after each decided to stay, because of "the quality of life": "People talk about traffic in Dublin," she says in exasperated tones. "Please, go to Rome." John and Eimear Mulhern have also travelled up from the Curragh of Kildare to view the paintings, priced from £400 to £2,850.
Meanwhile, the work of the artists of the future is currently on show in a semi-renovated building beside the Vicar Street venue on Thomas Street. One of them is Maurice Caplice, from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, a third-year art student at the National College of Art and Design. He has put aside rummaging through skips for the night: he finds a lot of his material in other people's rubbish. His work, along with up to 100 pieces by fellow students, is in an exhibition, entitled Sensationless, which was opened this week by entrepreneur Harry Crosbie. On opening night Caplice watches viewers' reaction to his work. They jump back in shock when they flick the old-fashioned switch that he has wired up to a DC battery. The piece is called Will Power. "You're not supposed to touch art pieces but this piece forces you," he explains. He's expecting his father, Maurice Caplice, who has helped him with the electrics, to arrive any minute.
And yes, he promises, the hairy gorilla mask that's hanging on the opposite wall has been deloused. "I'm more like a toy-maker than an art student," he says. "It's about freeing the stereotypes, forcing you to deal with that stereotype." A lifelike installation at the back catches our eye: two young men sitting on the velvet couch. "Hi," we hear. They speak! Niall McCabe from Derry and Padraic King from Ardmore in Co Waterford don't think art students are wild or mad. "Well, you'd meet a few maniacs here alright . . . and most of them are here," says McCabe, nodding. "I think we're misunderstood," says King, with a mischievous grin. Theo McNab, Professor of Fine Art at NCAD, sipping a glass of stout, is assessing the turn-out. "I'm the boss," he says. But is he impressed? "This is their own initiative," he says. "I'm very impressed."
Eimear O'Raw, one of the organisers, hardly has a moment to greet her family who've just arrived in from Knocklyon - her mother and father, Brede and Tommy O'Raw, and her sister Jennifer (11) and older brother, Paul, who quietly stalks the three-storey building with a camcorder, recording everything for posterity. More guests arrive and wend their way up and under the wooden planks to view the work. The Nolans from Foxrock - Christopher, a retired company director, and Dympna, study their daughter Margaret's two pieces which are called Submission 1 and Submission 2. Christ on a crucifix and a bull. "They've both submitted," explains the artist's mother.